French #physician and #epidemiologist who performed the first successful #tracheotomy to save a p…

French #physician and #epidemiologist who performed the first successful #tracheotomy to save a patient suffering from #laryngeal #diptheria from suffocating. In 1825, he made an incision of and entrance into the trachea through the skin and muscles of the neck. (Four previous attempts had failed.)

Bretonneau was the first to distinguish #typhoid from #typhus. He was also the first to clinically describe diphtheria, which he named (Traité de la Diphérite,1826), a contagious condition, characterised by the presence of a false membrane in the pharynx or larynx. He derived the word derived from a Greek word meaning leather or hide. He also enunciated a theory of specific causes of infectious diseases, in which he foreshadowed the germ theory of Louis Pasteur.